Someone bring me a margarita. A proper one, with the ice all crushed in it.
No, nothing to celebrate. I just think a nice, cool, lime margarita would go down really nicely about now. Good for the throat, you know. Oh, hey, if we need a reason, how about we celebrate the fact that I m upright and functional?
I just did a bunch of author maintenance stuff. Now, back to the anthology ms.
Not that it makes much of a difference in my world, but it is.
I am feeling much, much better than yesterday. Eleven hours of good sleep count for a lot. The pain in the throat/sinus area has diminished to a much less distracting level without me having to throw ASA at it, although it is still somewhat swollen, and although I am achy (as usual) I don’t have to fight the yawning void of lassitude that was sucking at me yesterday. Or at least I don’t have to fight it as hard. So, back into the editorial fray! There is work to be done! Also, I get to invoice for some work today, which is always fun.
I have not knitted in a week. How odd. It occurs to me now that knitting is something I could have done yesterday afternoon when I dragged myself off to bed.
Oh look; it’s snowing again.
To my astonishment, the publisher has agreed to give me to give me pretty damn near what I’d asked for fee-wise for this anthology project. Not only that, the deadline has been extended so I’m not requiring my contributors to cram this into the next two weeks, and I don’t have to try to collate and edit the entire book by an equally insane deadline. Huzzah!
I also finished my first draft of yesterday’s assignment and it’s off waiting for the editor (a different editor, that is; ooh, the glamour of freelancing) to look at it. I also practised the cello. (Treble clef; good gods. Lots of it. And lots of little notes to a single bow in the Hebrides overture. Eep. The 7/8 handles well in that range, I have discovered.) I even tried changing the two lower strings on the 7/8 to the ones my teacher lent to me to see if that improved the projection and balance on the lower end, but they sounded scary and vaguely piano-like and the tension was completely out of whack with the upper two, so I changed them back. The luthier has given me an appointment for next Friday night, so that’s good. (In more ways than one: I’d originally asked for tomorrow night, but if this is indeed the Martian Death Plague, as the unfortunately experienced Mousme suspects, tomorrow night wouldn’t have happened.)
And now, because I have edited a new submission and one of the existing ones, I have accomplished more than what I set out to accomplish today, and I am going to go lie down. Because wow, do I feel woozy.
I went on my first cool assignment yesterday. I tried to throw what I could together once I got home, but it’s not going as well as I’d hoped and so I need some of today to finish it off. You will know something about it later today.
The in-progress anthology project I took on as editor (which is not, in fact, one of the cool things I was squeeing about on Tuesday) is proceeding apace. Two-thirds of the people I contacted have responded, most in the affirmative and the others to tell me they’re thinking it over, and I already have one submission in hand. I rock.
The bad news is I am very, very sick. I had a sore throat yesterday and the chills, but by last night I was in complete misery. Fortunately orchestra was cancelled due to the storm, which took the difficult decision to cancel my own attendance out of my hands. I slept awfully, which is to say not at all, and got up around two-thirty to take two ASA tablets. They eased the swollen, painful throat and headache, but landed on an empty stomach and proceeded to make me utterly nauseous as well.
This morning I am shaky and still ill and the golf-ball-sized swelling of my soft palate around my lower sinuses burns every time I try to swallow, and lurks malevolently in between. HRH took pity on me and left late for work in order to be the one to drop the boy off with the caregiver, because I can’t stand up long enough to get to the car and drive. I have a long list of things to work on, none of which include Orchestrated, and because of the freelance assignment I missed practising yesterday as well as orchestra so I need to rearrange things in order to make sure I do at least some simple cello work today.
So I’m going to make more chamomile tea and get to it. Or maybe I’ll go with peppermint, made with mint from Ceri’s garden.
Hello, world. I would just like to take this moment to point out that it is five minutes to five in the afternoon, and the sun is still up.
Thank you.
(Every minute counts! Go spring! And huzzah, Imbolc next week!)
No, no, this is good. This is good of such magnitude that I can’t encompass it.
I have just been given not one but two of the Best Assignments Ever. This has nothing to do with the rush editing job I’ve been working on all day so far. No, this was a phone call setting up Something Big for tomorrow morning (okay, another rush thing, but I can handle it), and something Even Bigger for next week.
I’m so freaked out that I’m shaking. It’s a good kind of freaked out, but still, there’s an awful lot of panic in there.
Okay. I am okay. But I am a geek. And terrified that I’m not grown-up enough to pull this off.
Repeat after me: Professional writer. Professional writer. I am a professional writer. With tons of experience in the associated areas. How long have I been in the book business? Also, I am a geek, which counts for something when all’s said and done, really.
Professional writer. Professional. I am professional. (If I say it often enough, maybe I’ll believe it or it will finally sink in or something.)
Okay, it might actually be working, because I’m calming down. Or maybe it’s the rapid pacing up and down the hall between typing sentences that’s doing the calming.
Non-disclosure agreements dictate that I can’t share these until I’m told I can share. Trust me, when I’m allowed, I will shout from rooftops. In the meantime I will be over here in a quivering mass, nibbling at my fingertips and mumbling to myself.
I would say that I love my job, except right now I’m eyeing it with a certain amount of disbelief and suspicion.
ETA: And now, an hour later, I am completely exhausted from vibrating at levels of Unbelievably Awesome and have a headache. Yay for extra-strength Excedrin. Also, despite caffeine being the last thing I need right now, I am treating myself to a latte-from-a-packet, because we don’t have enough milk to make hot chocolate.
I just got that rush editing project. One month to do an insane amount of work. Soliciting anthology submissions, editing them, organizing them, and the final steps before publication.
Goodbye, Orchestrated.
*headdesk*
ETA: Four hours and a crazy-intensive burst of work later, and I’ve done all I can for the moment. I’m going to take a quick pass through the manuscript, but apart from that, I’m waiting. So… I might as well keep plugging away on Orchestrated.